Summer vacation season is approaching, and whether your travels take you across the state, across the country or across the ocean, food is an important part of any trip. Learning to cook dishes from your favorite destinations is a great way to keep the excitement of a trip going long after you’ve come home and unpacked.

Ten years ago, Sheree and Paul Sienkiewicz honeymooned in Italy and brought home beautiful photos, amazing memories and a recipe for risotto they learned to make at a cooking class in Florence.

“Chef Barbara took us to the market and taught us how to buy fresh food. Then she cooked with us and showed us how to make the risotto,” Paul Sienkiewicz said.

As an orthopedic surgeon, Paul Sienkiewicz has excellent knife skills, but Sheree does most of the cooking in their Fox Point home.

“Sheree is the primary cook,” he said. “I’m not a chef, but I learned how to make this risotto pretty well.”

Risotto isn’t typically thought of as easy, and Sienkiewicz appreciates that guests enjoy what has become his signature dish.

“People say, ‘oh…risotto, that’s so difficult!’ But it really isn’t. I don’t even use the recipe anymore, it must be a pretty forgiving recipe because I just make it up as I go…. I’ve never screwed it up once.”

Sienkiewicz tweaked the recipe a bit by replacing the vegetable stock with chicken stock, and his version is an across-the-board winner.

“This cooking class was definitely a highlight of the trip,” Paul recalled. “We went to the Galleria dell’ Accademia museum and saw the statue of David, but we remember this trip more from the cooking than the museum.”

Lilly Goren, professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, traveled to Vietnam in 2009 on a recruitment trip with university President Doug Hastad and his wife, Nancy.

“We were with locals in Hanoi and we made it a point to eat foods indigenous to Vietnam,” she said.

When their host offered to teach them a few local recipes, Goren and the rest of the group jumped at the chance.

“It was somewhat impromptu. The next day they set up a mini outdoor kitchen for us. This was early in our trip, but we had already eaten the spring rolls and I liked them…who doesn’t like a good egg roll?”

After she saw the spring roll making technique, Goren realized the process wasn’t difficult.

“They said the key was to fold the sides in first, I still do that…once I made them I thought, ‘this is not that hard.’ You have to make the filling and it’s a lot of cutting of vegetables. These are vegetarian and made with tofu, but you can use ground turkey or ground chicken.”

On a recent visit to Tel Aviv, my Israeli cousin, Rita Kessler, walked me through a hummus-prepping session. Kessler runs Secret Wine Tours, a company that takes visitors on tours of Israeli wineries.

Along with her love of good wine, Kessler appreciates delicious food, meaning she uses only fresh chickpeas for her hummus. Fresh chickpeas (garbanzo beans) require overnight soaking, a step that involves planning. Kessler knows my reputation as a cook who loves a good shortcut, but she warned me against using canned chickpeas.

“You can use garlic from a jar, but don’t use canned chickpeas!” Kessler insisted. For my everyday purposes, canned chickpeas work fine, but when Kessler visits, you can bet I’ll plan ahead and mix up a batch using the fresh stuff.

Getting off the beaten path and away from tourist attractions to immerse yourself in a culture is often easier said than done, but it’s an ongoing goal for Jessica Rich. “I love to travel and my favorite things to do are people watch and eat,” she said.

While researching social movements over the past 10 years, Rich, a political science professor at Marquette University, had the opportunity to spend extended periods of time in Brazil. Rich confessed that some Brazilian specialties are beyond her cooking abilities.

“There are two big Brazilian dishes which are incredibly elaborate and I’ve never made them nor do I plan to,” Rich said. But a trendy Brazilian cocktail and a popular dessert are two favorites that Rich prepares in her east side home.

“The national Brazilian drink is Caipirinha, and it’s become popular and trendy in the US,” she said. “It’s made with Cachaca, a powerful cane liquor that’s akin to tequila.”

A new version of this drink called Caipiroska is made with Caipi vodka instead of Cachaca.

“It’s arguably more popular, easier to make and less expensive,” Rich said. Fresh tropical fruit is the other important ingredient in a Caipiroska.

“You go to a party on the beach at night and they have fresh fruit stands. You pick the fruit and they macerate it with cane sugar and add the vodka and it’s just delicious,” Rich said.

In 2007 Rich shared a Rio apartment with two Brazilian roommates who introduced her to Brigadeiro, the Brazilian national dessert.

“It’s ridiculously easy. It’s sweetened condensed milk, cocoa powder and butter,” Rich said. These delicacies transport Rich back to happy Brazilian nights drinking wine and eating Brigadeiro with her roommates, Barbara and Daniella. Just before Rich left Brazil, her roommates presented her with a copy of their recipe.

“They said that this recipe is so you remember us,” Rich recalled, “and they added ‘a lot of memories’ as the fourth ingredient.”

Recipes

A Brazilian dessert called brigadeiro is a chocolaty concoction with just three ingredients. It can also be rolled into balls and coated with chocolate sprinkles.(Photo: Michael McLoone, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)